Your Healthy Family: Doctors warn again, stay home when your sick

Sally ziegler works on the front lines of germs day in and day out as an early childhood educator she had her flu shot this year and still missed 2 weeks of work with the flu.

As we continue through a difficult and deadly flu season we want to emphasize how very important it is to stay home when you feel sick, no matter how inconvenient it may be.

Dr. Gina Bamberger, with UCHealth’s Sunflower Primary Care Clinic in Colorado Springs has seen this flu season have an impact on her clinic.

“I get it that there are financial implications to staying home. We're seeing a lot of absenteeism, a lot of people are not able to come into work even here in our clinic, we have had people called sick. However it's really important to avoid spreading the flu to other people, especially people who don't have strong immune systems to fight it like the very young the very very old or people who are sick.”

Sally Ziegler works on the front lines of germs day in and day out as an early childhood educator in Colorado Springs. She had her flu shot earlier this year and still missed 2 weeks of work because of the flu.

Sally says, “There have been at least 30 confirmed cases of the flu in the small early childhood center that I work in, and the impact is not just on the children. When the staff are sick for example, I missed two full weeks of being a teacher, that means 2 full weeks of finding a substitute and that means connections that were made with those children are now weakened because of our separation.”

Sally understands that if she had tried to push through and went to work she could have spread her flu to others and she hopes others follow her example and stay home and rest when they are sick.

“I just cannot encourage everyone enough, to listen to your body. Stay home when you need to. As parents look at your children, you know what their typical activity level is and if you see them moping around, or sleeping for long periods of time and then wanting to take another nap something's not right. Please honor their health by taking care of them."

Dr. Bamberger adds, “Rest is crucial to getting better. People say that they feel so bad that they probably don't want to do anything other than rest, and that's really important."